Inside London’s Expanding Female Art Scene

The co-founder of Association of Women in the Arts, Sigrid Kirk, believes that by 2025 an estimated 60% of U.K.’s wealth will be in the hands of women who are likely to purchase art made by women. She considers the market as presenting “an undeniable growth area and one commercially savvy galleries are heeding.”

Yet for most of London’s history there has only been one definitive home available for female artists. The Society of Women Artists (SWA) was founded as the Society of Female Artists in 1855 and has been promoting art created by women ever since. This week sees the opening of its 163^rd Annual Open Exhibition, a prestigious event hosted at Mall Galleries, consisting of works by members and non-members selected by a panel.

What is perhaps most inspiring is SWA’s inclusion of artists whose career trajectory deviates from the traditional art degree pathway. Ahuva Zeloof, whose piece “New Movement” has been selected for this year’s exhibition, is one such interesting example.

Prior to becoming a full-time sculptor and working artist, Ahuva—like many women of her generation—married young. Most of her early adulthood was spent raising her four children whilst supporting her family’s business in the East End textile trade. Born in Iraq, she moved to London in the 1970s and was struck by the museums and galleries, which she visited whenever she had a chance, to “intuitively acquire visual knowledge.”

Drawn to sites of creativity and community, Ahuva was instrumental in turning the Truman Brewery, along with her family, into a contemporary art and fashion hub. “Being around young creatives, I learnt from cultural exchange, their energy and curiosity.”

These disparate influences would organically coalesce as she began exploring her own craft in the 1990s, after being encouraged by a friend to join a clay-sculpting class. Something clicked for Ahuva, and she began her practice in earnest, chiseling in stone, casting in bronze and recently, branching out into glass sculpture.

Despite this unconventional route into art, the mainstream establishment has shown itself increasingly willing to platform her work. Since officially launching her professional career in 2016, Ahuva has shown alongside Lucien Freud, David Hockney and Sir Peter Blake and was selected for the International Biennale of Glass 2023 and the Royal Cambrian Academy in 2023, amongst other accolades. Surely all welcome signs that the art world is slowly developing a greater awareness that there can be worthy obstacles to formal training, such as motherhood. It’s heartening that talent is no longer being penalized for this.

Unsurprisingly, female curators play a crucial role in this expanding ecosystem. Maria Korolevskaya, curator and founder of The Art Partners, explains that they help “ensure exhibitions explore themes of feminine power and womanhood from authentic and diverse perspectives.” We are finally seeing this reflected in the recent growth of female art initiatives in London.

Alongside infrastructure improvements showcased with female conferences such as AWITA, and a new art fair dedicated specifically to female artists, gallerists and curators, Women in Art, we are also seeing key national museums like Tate Britain magnifying feminist art with shows such as Sarah Lucas’ “Happy Gas” and “Art, Activism and the Women’s movement in the UK 1970-1990,” both of which closed earlier this year.

At the other end of the spectrum, female entrepreneurs are harnessing technological innovation to boost the visibility of their artists. A strong case study is “The Dimension of Feeling,” curated by Maria Korolevskaya and presented by Vortic Curated, a company that uses augmented reality to create digital exhibitions.

“I think it’s important not to treat female artists as a minority and ‘celebrate’ them, but to identify their strengths, wisdom, mysteriousness, and endless creative potential,” Maria notes. “This will provide a healthy perspective from which we all can learn.” This is exactly what comes across in Ahuva’s sculptures, which draw on her lived experiences of pregnancy, birth, female friendship and even changing gender roles to create sculptures that are sublimely feminine. For her, the female body is “the most genius machine.”

Maria thinks there’s more to the recent explosion of interest than just commercial opportunity. “Our vision and style as visitors have historically been shaped by a male perspective. We have a chance to research and learn more about the female gaze in the art field. It’s like a story told from a completely different angle.”

Hopefully, this trend will continue upwards, enriching London’s artistic dialogue as the public gets a taste for this barely tapped goldmine. In the meantime, I recommend visiting the SWA’s exhibition—as it was the lone champion of women for so long—and after that, exploring far and wide.

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The Society of Women Artists 163rd Annual Exhibition is on from June 25, 2024 to June 29, 2024 at the Mall Galleries. For more information, please visit their website.

“The Dimension of Feeling” curated by Maria Korolevskaya and present by Vortic Curated, is available to view online until the July 11, 2024.